William Shakespeare

News about William Shakespeare, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. Above right, a portrait from around 1610 that is believed to be the only authentic image of the bard made during his lifetime. Left, a later engraving.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 23, 2015

Alexis Soloski reviews Pearl Theater production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, directed by Michael Sexton and starring Bradford Cover. MORE

Feb. 3, 2015

Anita Gates reviews New York Shakespeare Exchange production of Titus Andronicus, directed by Ross Williams at Here; Brendan Averett stars. MORE

Dec. 23, 2014

Charles Isherwood reviews Royal Shakespeare Company production of Henry IV, directed by Gregory Doran at Barbican Theater in London; Jasper Britton and Anthony Sher star. MORE

Dec. 21, 2014

Michael Sommers reviews Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey production of Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Scott Wentworth at F M Kirby Shakespeare Theater (Metropolitan/New Jersey). MORE

Nov. 26, 2014

Remarkable discovery of previously unknown folio of Shakespeare's plays in a small library of northern France brings total of surviving first folios to 233; books, each one different, are intensely scrutinized by scholars and are prized for what they reveal about the playwright's intentions. MORE

Nov. 25, 2014

Alexis Soloski reviews Mobile Shakespeare Unit production of Shakespeare play Pericles, Prince of Tyre, directed by Rob Melrose at Public Theater. MORE

Oct. 26, 2014

Two of the English language’s most popular and most frequently performed dramas, Our Town by Thornton Wilder and Hamlet by Shakespeare, are being staged in Connecticut's Long Wharf Theater and Hartford Stage (Metropolitan/Connecticut). MORE

Oct. 15, 2014

Oct. 8, 2014

Laura Collins-Hughes reviews The Great Tragedies, four monologues by Mike Daisey that focus on Shakespeare's famous tragedies, at California Shakespeare Theater. MORE

Oct. 2, 2014

Charles Isherwood reviews Shakespeare's Globe production of King Lear, directed by Bill Buckhurst and starring Joseph Marcell. MORE

Sep. 28, 2014

Ken Jaworowski reviews Shakespeare play Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Emily Mann and starring Nicole Ari Parker and Esau Pritchett, at the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton (Metropolitan/New Jersey). MORE

Sep. 15, 2014

British government will donate 1.5 million pounds ($2.44 million) to Royal Shakespeare Company to translate all of Shakespeare’s works into Mandarin for first time; grant will finance company tour of China in 2016 and allow for select Chinese dramatic works to be translated into English. MORE

Sep. 8, 2014

Charles Isherwood reviews Public Theater's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Todd Almond at Delacorte Theater in Central Park. MORE

Aug. 31, 2014

Lear deBessonet's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, opening at Delacorte Theater, is culmination of director's desire to combine passion for social justice and activism with her love and devotion to theater. MORE

Aug. 16, 2014

Charles Isherwood reflects that Stratford Festival presents opportunity to relate the themes of Shakespeare's seldom-staged history play King John to those of King Lear. MORE

Aug. 13, 2014

Charles Isherwood holds separate productions of Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream being presented by Stratford Shakespeare Festival are so divergent in style that they almost seem like different plays; notes that Chris Abraham production is more traditional of two, while avant-garde director Peter Sellars offers madly transformed version. MORE

Aug. 13, 2014

Andy Webster reviews Puppet Titus Andronicus, Puppet Shakespeare Players adaptation of Shakespeare play Titus Andronicus, at the Beckett Theater; play stars Adam Weppler, Sarah Villegas and puppets designed by A J Cote. MORE

Aug. 10, 2014

Bay Street Theater and the Hamptons Independent Theater Festival are presenting separate productions of Shakespeare's The Tempest outdoors in the Hamptons in August; theater and festival are taking different approaches to the story (Metropolitan/Long Island). MORE

Aug. 7, 2014

Ken Jaworowski reviews Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot production of Shakespeare play Othello, in municipal parking lot on Manhattan's Lower East Side. MORE

Aug. 6, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Shakespeare play King Lear, directed by Daniel Sullivan and starring John Lithgow and Annette Benning, as part of Shakespeare in the Park at Delacorte Theater in Central Park. MORE

Jul. 30, 2014

Ben Brantley Imagine This column, noting obsession that actors who have played Shakespeare's Hamlet over the years have had with the character, imagines fictional Battle of the Hamlets to determine which actor played him best. MORE

Jul. 19, 2014

Jul. 19, 2014

Alexis Soloski reviews Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot production of Shakespeare play Twelfth Night, directed by Hamilton Clancy and starring Emmanuel Elpenord and Jonathan Eric Foster, in Municipal Parking Lot at Ludlow and Broome Streets on the Lower East Side. MORE

Jun. 23, 2014

China is exhibiting growing appetite for Western-style theater and foreign productions are on the rise, including Actors' Gang production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Beijing. MORE

Jun. 17, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Public Theater and Shakespeare in the Park co-production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Hamish Linklater, at Delacorte Theater. MORE

Jun. 8, 2014

Michael Sommers reviews Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey production of The Tempest, directed by Bonnie J Monte and starring Sherman Howard and Lindsey Kyler, at the F M Kirby Shakespeare Theater in Madison (Metropolitan/New Jersey). MORE

Jun. 6, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Shakespeare play Macbeth, directed by Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh and starring Branagh and Alex Kingston, at the Park Avenue Armory. MORE

Jun. 3, 2014

Charles Isherwood reviews American Repertory Theater production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, adapted and directed by Aaron Posner and Teller and featuring songs by Tom Waits. MORE

May. 29, 2014

Laura Collins-Hughes reviews Drilling Company production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, directed by Hamilton Clancy and starring Alessandro Colla, in Bryant Park. MORE

May. 20, 2014

Ms. Bening, Jessica Hecht and Jessica Collins will portray the daughters of Lear, who will be played by John Lithgow. MORE

May. 18, 2014

Kenneth Branagh, star and co-director of Park Avenue Armory production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, discusses how he staged the play he has been thinking about for years. MORE

Mar. 30, 2014

Shakespeare’s plays are natural fit for choreographers to stage, often dealing with young love and magic, themes easily adapted to dance movements; major dance companies continue to perform ballets based on variety of Shakespearean works. MORE

Mar. 28, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Theater for a New Audience production of Shakespeare's King Lear, directed by Arin Arbus and starring Michael Pennington, at Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. MORE

Mar. 28, 2014

Jason Zinoman reviews National Theater of China's Mandarin-language production of Shakespeare's Richard III, directed by Wang Xiaoying and starring Zhang Dongyu, at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. MORE

Mar. 20, 2014

Book Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now, to be published by Library of America in time for 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, highlights Shakespeare's massive popularity in United States since colonial times. MORE

Feb. 17, 2014

Feb. 13, 2014

British actor Samuel Barnett, starring in Richard III and Twelfth Night, Shakespearean productions in which men are playing the female roles, discusses sacrifices he is making in preparing for roles and current landscape for gay actors. MORE

Feb. 9, 2014

Michael Sommers reviews Two River Theater Company production of Shakespeare play As You Like it, directed by Michael Sexton and starring Miriam A Hyman, Sara Topham and Jacob Fishel (Metropolitan/New Jersey). MORE

Feb. 2, 2014

Recent spate of high-profile movie actors taking lead roles in London productions of Shakespeare invites comparison of lives led by modern celebrities and uncommon men portrayed in Shakespeare's plays. MORE

Jan. 27, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Shakespeare's King Lear at National Theater in London; Sam Mendes directs and Simon Russell Beale stars. MORE

Jan. 22, 2014

Glut of Shakespeare plays and other star-studded classical productions in current theater season is paradise for high-art loving theatergoers; unprecedented amount of Shakespeare performances has led to happily overwhelmed theatergoers and to marketing challenges for theater companies. MORE

Jan. 17, 2014

Ben Brantley reviews Bam Harvey Theater production of King Lear, directed by Angus Jackson. MORE

Jan. 11, 2014

Ben Brantley observes that the young company Bedlam Theater is presenting two four-actor plays, Shaw’s Saint Joan and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in repertory at the Lynn Redgrave Theater. MORE

Jan. 10, 2014

The Broadway double-bill of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III” will be treated as two separate shows for the purposes of the Tony Awards. MORE

Magazine Desk

A young man from a small provincial town -- a man without independent wealth, without powerful family connections and without a university education -- moved to London in the late 1580's and, in a remarkably short time, became the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time.

September 12, 2004theaterNews

Arts & Ideas/Cultural Desk

A high-profile forum for study of the authorship question has emerged right at Shakespeare's Globe, that nucleus of Shakespeare performance and education in London modeled on the renowned theater where the author's plays were produced and performed in his lifetime.

August 21, 2004artsNews

The Arts/Cultural Desk

Only two years ago, a report that two-thirds of leading American universities had dropped the Shakespeare requirement for English majors in favor of courses on popular culture and gender studies prompted worries that the playwright was becoming a has-been, a victim of the commissars of political correctness and willfully watered-down curriculums. Today, happily, it's clear that such reports of Shakespeare's demise were vastly exaggerated.

March 18, 1999moviesNews

Cultural Desk

Tomorrow is the 433d anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and, from box office grosses to book sales to a survey by the Modern Language Association, the evidence suggests that more people are watching him, reading him and studying him than ever before.

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